I have a confession to make. I get nervous when I have to cook for guests. It’s not that I am a bad chef. But I get nervous when I have to move from finding a great recipe to shopping to food production and to presentation at a high level. So I usually stick to something basic. Sometimes I get inspired by a recipe, but only realize later that I don’t have the spices, or that some ingredients are hard to find. And complex recipes are a pain, especially when you don’t do them every day, and even more so there is no room for error.
Here is one solution to this problem. Nico Lontras and I are excited about a new way to prepare special meals for four persons starting from a ‘spice pack’ – The spice packs are produced in the UK by a family company called Spicentice. Here is what makes these spice packs special. They include great spice mixes (to be expected) and all the information you need to get through food production (including a shopping list and recipe). It takes most of the risk out of the process, making it pretty easy to make, for example, lamb rogan josh. Very cool.
To give you an idea of how this works, we decided to do a photo shoot on a Sunday afternoon, making lamb rogan josh. Nico was in the kitchen. Michael Walsh did the camera work. And I did the …. well I really didn’t do anything. Here is the result. Enjoy!
Prescribed food ingredients and the pack of Spicentice's Lamb Rogan Josh
Here is the first nice feature. The shopping list is on the package
Nice feature number 2 - The recipe is inside, and it is easy to follow
All the exotic spices you need are already mixed and are in sachets inside. The quality of the spices makes the product rock
So — here we go. Nico will guide you. This will take around 45 minutes. After shopping, we start with something like this
First Nico cuts up and marinates the lamb (using the spices in the marinating sachet)
Then Nico dices the onion, garlic and ginger (he does this very fast)
Now we are ready to sauté
Just follow the instructions
Hmmm... how about some popadons? (This is extra)
So, in 45 minutes from start to finish you can make this
So, there you are. By the way, perhaps you don’t want lamb. With minor adjustments in the cooking time, you can use any meat, or perhaps tofu, or go vegetarian. That’s even easier!
What? It might be too spicy? Spicentice uses fantastic, fresh spices. But if you want a more subdued flavor, just cut back on the amounts you use from the spice packs (let’s say by a third).
What other spice packs does Spicentice offer? There are 22 varieties and 3 chutneys. I love the Thai Green Curry. I am also partial to Bombay Potatoes (Not being of Hindu persuasion, I often substitute pork for the potatoes).
So Nico and I love Spicentice products! Very cool.
Michael Gallagher is an Estonian/American lawyer who came to Tartu in 1994 and has been living and working in Tartu since then. From 1994 to 2007 he was primarily involved in developing professional legal education systems with the Estonian Law Centre, and interdisciplinary education within Tartu University. Since then he has been teaching, consulting, and developing projects in law and business.
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Leicester Nico Lontras Spice Tartu
I found another website that does the same. I highly reccomend the punjabi lamb spice kit, from redhotcuisine.
They also have a lot of Indian recipes on the site.
